Thursday, November 18, 2010

My Sexy Partner

Aug. 28th, 2010

"I had a dream!" I bellowed in Grand Central at my partner as we ate breakfast. Considering how loud I was and the fact that the caffeine from my coffee seemed to have been mainstreamed into my blood, I was surprised no one turned around. That's an early morning Portland crowd bent on having breakfast and coffee, nothing really surprises them.

"I dreamt we sold tickets to people to fund our business!" I said gesturing madly, it was still the coffee. Completely nonplussed my partner in crime replied, "Why not?" with a shrug.

I'm still in the honeymoon stage with this project and I'm extremely glad and how to keep it going as long as humanly possible. I think when we get to the nitty gritty of the finding the money, that will be the part where I start the bipolar roller coaster of risk scariness. I know it's there in the park I'm just putting it in it's place and that's a step in the process down the road, we are on step, I dunno 7 and that's step 9 and step 8 is going to take forever, so I'm not going to prematurely freak out. I'm going to enjoy this part.

What got me jazzed today was even though we only had a short period of time that we could work together today, our plan was to open a bank account. We were going to "shop" for a bank. The reason that is in quotes, is that we went to one bank and were seduced so completely we fell in love.

First I had a moment of lust for my partner, who on approaching the counter told the man, "We have a small business and we are shopping around for a bank." I nearly lost my composure in front of the bank people and started humping her leg. We have a small business, we HAVE a small business, weHAVE a small business! Not, "we are thinking about," or "we are planning", or "working on". We have. She was so goddamn sexy right there. I took a loud inhale and she thought I wanted to explain what we were up to, but I just needed oxygen so that I could prevent myself from doing something that might get us kicked out of said bank.

The guy had more personality then anyone I've ever talked to in a bank. He thought our idea was great. He explained all the options and what we would probably need for our size, he asked us about financing (Why? You want to give us money?) and gave us an SBA loan packet and told us they had a whole crew of people that did nothing but answer questions about getting a small business together and could help us whenever.

He told us all we needed to have was our Articles of Organization and our Operating Agreement and a hundred dollars. We didn't have those with us. Money and EIN but that's it. So we got the paperwork and headed out the door, but he flagged us down. "Do you have time? Would you like to take a tour?"

She said "Sure!" I thought, a tour? WTF? Isn't this it?

Ahhh not so. Umpqua Bank (that's where we were) has a computer station where anyone can come in and use the computer and print stuff off. They sometimes get overflow from the library across the street. Their center island is used to feature a local business that banks with them. The bank sells their items and showcases them for no charge to the business. They also have a community board and a TV that displays a slide show of local business and their information or events. They also have cookies on Friday and coffee always.

Can you see why we fell in love? I don't think we could get better rates elsewhere and I doubt we'd get that kind of treatment elsewhere. I could be wrong but that bank felt right.

We walked back to my places, stopping a couple times so I could hump her leg. We are really doing this!

We finished our Operating Agreement, terribly exciting paperwork that is, though I might have another wet pantie moment when we sign the papers, and emailed the whole thing to ourselves. Out of time, we parted company with another date set up for Thursday to sign papers and meet with the bank and open the account.